Richard, and James, and Melinda, and baby, and Eunice Plympton as baby’s nurse, all went to Des Moines, and left the house so lonely that Andy lay flat upon the floor and cried, and his mother’s face wore the look of one who had just returned from burying their dead.  It was something, however, to be the mother and brother of a governor, and a comfort to get letters from the absent ones, to hear of Richard’s immense popularity, and the very graceful manner in which Melinda discharged her duties.  But to see their names in print, to find something about Governor Markham in almost every paper—­that was best of all, and Andy spent half his time in cutting out and saving every little scrap pertaining to the “governor’s family,” and what they did at Des Moines.  Andy was laid up with rheumatism toward spring; but Tim Jones used to bring him the papers, rolling his quid of tobacco rapidly from side to side as he pointed to the paragraphs so interesting to both.  Tim hardly knew whether himself, or Richard, or Melinda, was the governor.  On the whole, he gave the preference to “Melind,” after the governor’s levee, at which she had appeared in “royal purple, with ostrich feathers in her hair,” and was described in the Camden Leader as the “elegant and accomplished Mrs. James Markham, who had received the guests with so much dignity and grace.”

“Ain’t Melind a brick? and only to think how she used to milk the cows, and I once chased her with a garter snake,” Tim said, reading the article aloud to Andy, who, while assenting that she was a brick, and according all due credit to her for what she was, and what she did, never for a moment forgot Ethelyn.

She would have done so much better, and looked so much neater, especially her shoes!  Andy could not quite forgive Melinda’s big feet and ankles, especially as his contempt for such appendages was constantly kept in mind by the sight of the little half-worn slippers which Ethie had left in her closet when she moved to Camden, and which, now that she was gone, he kept as something almost as sacred as Daisy’s hair, admiring the dainty rosettes and small high heels more than he admired the whole of Melinda’s wardrobe when spread upon the bed, and tables, and chairs, preparatory to packing it for Des Moines.  Richard, too, remembered Ethelyn, and never did Melinda stand at his side in any gay saloon that he did not see in her place a brown-eyed, brown-haired woman who would have moved a very queen among the people.  Ethelyn was never forgotten, whether in the capitol, or the street, or at home, or awake, or asleep.  Ethie’s face and Ethie’s form were everywhere, and if earnest, longing thoughts could have availed to bring her back, she would have come, whether across the rolling sea, or afar from the trackless desert.  But they could not reach her, Ethie did not come, and the term of Richard’s governorship glided away, and he declined a re-election, and went back to Olney, looking ten years older than when he left it, with an habitual expression of sadness on his face, which even strangers noticed, wondering what was the heart trouble which was aging him so fast, and turning his brown hair gray.